Interview: The Doobie Brothers

The name the Doobie Brothers conjures images of denim, leather, rock and roll, and bikers. It’s an image that’s been attached to the band during a half-century in which they’ve ensconced themselves in the pop culture zeitgeist via a string of early ‘70s hits, including “Listen to The Music,” “Black Water,” “China Grove” and “Takin’ It to the Streets,” and an early history of playing biker bars.

And with the band set to embark on another world tour, it’s quite jarring to know that the late pianist Liberace has an indirect connection to the band’s roots, at least through founding member Patrick Simmons. The story dates back to when the future Rock & Roll Hall of Famer started taking piano lessons from his babysitter when the Washington state native was still in kindergarten.

“My first day, I walked into her house, and she had a piano,” Simmons recalled in a late May interview. “We had a piano at home, and my sister played. I walked over to the piano, hit a couple of high notes on the keyboard and the lady asked if I played. At five years old, I said no, and she asked if I would like to learn. I looked up, said sure and told her I’d love to learn. I learned all the notes, scales and how to finger the piano. She went through all the basics, and by the time I got done with that year in school, I was beginning to read music and could actually play little songs on the keyboard, looking at the notes. After we would finish a half hour after practicing, we would sit down and listen to Liberace’s show on the radio while having milk and cookies. She told me to listen to this guy because he was really a great keyboard and piano player. And she also said I could see the possibilities of what I was doing there at her house and what I could be if I wanted to be.”

Fast forward nearly three-quarters of a century, and the 75-year-old musician has enjoyed a 50-years-and-counting run with the group he founded in 1970 along with fellow vocalist/guitarist Tom Johnston, bassist Dave Shogren, and drummer John Hartman. With Simmons and Johnston at its core, The Doobie Brothers have bone through a number of incarnations (including the addition of former Steely Dan members Michael McDonald and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter in the mid-1970s, when the band’s sound took a poppier turn and generated the crossover hit single “What a Fool Believes”), won a handful of Grammys, scored 16 Billboard Top 40 hits and sold more than 40 million records worldwide. This journey was captured in the 2022 autobiography “Long Train Runnin’,” a project co-written with former “Los Angeles Times/Huffington Post” contributor Chris Epting.

Simmons said such a book was on the band’s bucket list when Epting approached him and Johnston about writing this autobiography.

“Tommy and I are basically the two remaining original guys from the band, and we had a meeting with Chris where his concept was for us to write this from our perspective of having been in the band for all [this time],” Simmons explained. “I had been there for all 50 years, and Tom had basically started the band with me. Chris started helping us by doing interviews and helping us remember things from the past. In the end, he was there jogging our memories as much as writing. It was an enjoyable process that took about three years from the time we started talking about it until we got the finished product. It was a relief to get it done, but a great thing for our fans, which is really how I saw it all along, is that it would be a really good low-cost memorabilia item for people who are hardcore fans and would like to have that. It’s still one of those perennials—every night we set ‘em out and sign 40 or 50 of them and people buy them. It’s not a real expensive item, so it’s kind of cool to have that.”

Touring has always been the lifeblood for The Doobie Brothers, particularly for Simmons, a self-described “road dog.” The current jaunt will find this lineup to include Simmons, Johnston, and McDonald and will be rounded out by multi-instrumental utility man John McFee (a band member for much of the group’s run) and former Allman Brothers Band percussionist Marc Quiñones. Fans can expect a solid representation from the band’s deep canon along with new material from a forthcoming yet untitled album slated to drop in 2025.

“Our setlist is obviously going to be the songs that are more familiar to people and then a few oddball songs that we want to play for ourselves,” Simmons said. “We just finished a new album and as it stands, we’re going to be doing at least one song from that new album that we recorded recently called ‘Walk This Road.’”

While The Doobie Brothers went on a five-year hiatus from 1982 to 1987, the members have always found their way back to each other. Their longevity is unusual in an industry where the pressures of fame have ripped apart plenty of groups at the height of success. For Simmons, the band's ongoing story has a lot to do with maturity and stoking the bonds of camaraderie over the decades.

“I think in many ways, [our longevity] is just happenstance,” Simmons said. “We are friends and that certainly helps. These days, I think we don’t sweat the small stuff and that probably really helps. So many bands I think hold on to petty differences, jealousies and s***. We’ve been able to get past that. I certainly think it’s so much easier when you’re younger to be plagued by that kind of thinking. We broke up more than once and so here we are back together 50 years from our inception. A lot of it is just luck. We do work hard. We do enjoy what we have and we don’t take it for granted. I’ll speak for myself. I do love music, and I do love playing in a band and always have. That’s why I’m still here. A lot of guys have gone by the wayside not having wanted to continue. It was their choice. They got tired of the road and the lifestyle. For me, it’s always been something I’ve enjoyed and I’m sure I will forever.”